Plantation teaches visitors about old Louisiana life through rituals

Laura McKnightStaff Writer

Sunday

Oct 12, 2008 at 8:00 AM

VACHERIE — Religious tradition flavored every part of life for residents of old-time south Louisiana.Those customs did not stop in death.Instead, family members and friends marked each loved one’s departure with a host of rituals and traditions intended to offer an honorable farewell. A period of mourning impacted entire homes, from family members’ clothing and social lives to children’s toys and bed linens.This month and early next, special tours at St. Joseph Plantation in Vacherie allow visitors a closer look at how families in 18th- and 19th-century south Louisiana mourned their deceased.The plantation began holding its annual Mourning Tours in early October and continues offering them through Nov. 3.The 12,000 square-foot plantation home includes one room dedicated to Louisiana Creole mourning customs, but each fall, the entire plantation displays the look of full “deep mourning.”Tour guides weave information about mourning into the regular house tours, explaining the traditions to guests, who can learn a lot about past Louisiana life through rituals used for death, said plantation staff.Understanding these traditions helps visitors grasp “the rich history and culture of Old Creole Louisiana,” states a news release about the Mourning Tours.Much of that culture revolved around the Catholic faith.“Religion was so important to the people of this area,” said Debbie Reulet, a tour guide and member of the family that has owned the plantation for 131 years.Several definitions of “Creole” exist; Reulet describes herself and her ancestors as Creoles in the sense that they descend from the original French and German settlers of southern Louisiana. Most of these Louisiana Creoles claimed French, German and Spanish descent, she said.These families also were devout Roman Catholics whose faith was deeply woven into their lives and culture. Families traveled to Mass each Sunday. Homes displayed images of Jesus, Joseph and other saints as often as pictures of family members. A prie-dieu, or prayer desk, sat in each bedroom. Mornings, evenings and meal times began with prayers.The Mourning Tours’ October timing has nothing to do with Halloween or potential ghost-sightings. Plantation managers and tour guides plan the seasonal tours to lead into All Saints Day and All Souls Day, holidays of great importance to south Louisiana Catholics.All Saints Day, celebrated Nov. 1, formed one of the most-celebrated holy days of the year, according to the release from the plantation. Families would spend weeks cleaning, repairing and white-washing their relatives’ tombs for visits on All Saints Day. Those traditions remain active today.Other traditions do not remain so intact, especially since the advent of funeral parlors, but St. Joseph Plantation’s mourning tours aim to help keep those customs from fading completely into history.The plantation, which opened for tours in October 2004, started offering mourning tours in 2006 after staff heard of similar tours at other historic spots, Reulet said.Only a few sites in Louisiana offer mourning tours, keeping the annual event at St. Joseph a unique experience for most, she said.The plantation, which attracts tourists from across the world, annually sees an increase in visits during its mourning tours.A common fascination with the past brings most to the plantation, Reulet said.“You want to know how people lived,” she said.And how they handled death.

Along with the mourning tours, St. Joseph Plantation offers another unique experience to visitors: a chance to interact with direct descendents of Joseph Waguespack, who bought the River Road property in 1877.Most tours are led by members of the Waguespack and Simon families, who have run the sugarcane plantation since Waguespack bought the home and land 131 years ago.St. Joseph, built circa 1830, sits between two other historic homes, Oak Alley and Felicite plantations, and two miles upriver from Laura Plantation.The house remains largely as it was initially built, with the original cypress, glass and other materials intact, family members said.They believe the home was built by the Scioneaux family, Louisiana Creoles of French descent who acquired the property as far back as the late 1700s.The property exchanged hands several times before Joseph Waguespack bought the plantation after it was sold at a sheriff’s sale. He then named the plantation after his patron saint.His descendants lived on the plantation grounds until 1996.In June 2002, Waguespack’s descendents began a large-scale — and ongoing — effort to restore and preserve their ancestral home.“We call it our labor of love,” Reulet said. “It was family members getting together to preserve our history.”St. Joseph Plantation remains family-owned and operated, run by 215 stockholders who are direct descendants of Joseph Waguespack. The family also owns neighboring Felicite Plantation.St. Joseph’s grounds include the main house as well as a schoolhouse, blacksmith shop, carpenter’s shop, detached kitchen, slave cabins, gift shop and other smaller structures, such as a chicken coop.St. Joseph also remains a working sugarcane plantation, growing 600 to 800 acres of sugarcane each year.

Guests can see the signs of grief as soon as they arrive at St. Joseph, the mourning period announced on the plantation’s front doors by black crepe drapery and wreaths.The depth of mourning and length of time spent in mourning depended on a person’s relationship to the departed. South Louisiana residents would typically follow deep mourning traditions for a year after the loss of an immediate family member or for a few weeks after the loss of other relatives, such as a cousin or uncle, said Jackie Roussel, a tour guide and great-great-great-granddaughter of Joseph Waguespack.Households in mourning adopted black and sometimes deep purple décor.At St. Joseph, details like black table runners, purple candles and white bed linens with black trim and black embroidered crosses signify a time of grief.Ornate black mourning dresses and a set of young girl’s clothing with black trim show how attire would change during mourning time. A widow would wear black for at least a year, with the first six months spent in black clothing with no lace, ribbons or other flashy embellishments. Superstition dictated that shiny objects, from ribbons to mirrors, attracted evil spirits. Those in mourning were considered to be in a weakened state, making them more susceptible to such spirits, Reulet said.Men and boys would often wear black arm bands to show their mourning states. Young girls would wear clothing with black trim.A black-draped coffin sits in the main hall at St. Joseph, a burning candle and prie-dieu nearby in accordance with old Creole custom.The walls display other Creole traditions: immortelles, a French decoration formed of porcelain flowers; clocks stopped at the time of death; mirrors covered in black material to prevent the spirits of the deceased from becoming trapped in the reflective glass.A brooch featuring a fleur-de-lis fashioned from human hair forms a reminder of bygone customs.“That was very common to take a bit of the hair of the deceased and make some kind of memoriam out of it,” Reulet said.Plantation visitors of various backgrounds identify with some Creole mourning customs, but also learn about variations, she said.For locals sharing the Creole heritage, the tours offer a deeper connection to their ancestors.“You get a better appreciation of them when you know the things that were important to them, how they lived,” Reulet said.

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